December 31 - Revelation 19-22: God Sets Everything Right in the End

Today’s Reading: Revelation 19-22

The Message

English Standard Version

Today is the last reading. What a journey! Tomorrow I will post a few thoughts on reading throughout the year. But today—let's finish this!

Thought to Guide Your Reading

The Curse is lifted and people who have set things right reign with God forever!

Summary in 100 Words or Less

A rider called "the Word of God" defeated the Beasts, the Dragon, and their followers.
A thousand years later, the Dragon and his army stood for one last, epic battle. God burned them all in a flash.
The world was judged by how they lived.
God moved into the neighborhood with His Children forever.
I, John, saw a bejeweled city without temple or sun. The curse was lifted!
Blessed are the ones who wash their robes! Drink of the Water of Life!
Warning: additions and subtractions to this book will be punished.
Come, Jesus! May His Grace be with you.

How Today’s Reading Contributes to the Gospel: God is Setting All Things Right

God set everything right in the end.

John offered solace to a group of people under great persecution. The Dragon and the Beasts symbolized Caesar and his rulers while their followers were people who wanted easier lives by going along with emperor worship. John wants Christians in Asia to know Caesar will not win in the end. God will defeat him. The epic battle, a thousand years in the making, turns out to be a slaughter of all evil while God loses not a single soldier. No group will ever defeat God. God will always defeat His Enemy.

God sets everything right in the end.

The followers of the Dragon and the Beasts are defeated alongside their icons. The world stands to hear God's Judgment. God judges the world based on how each person acts. The ones who set things right reign with Him forever. The ones who do not are thrown into the (metaphorical) lake of fire. Whether it is a literal lake or not is unknown—and unimportant.

God will set everything right in the end.

The vision of the new Jerusalem and the perfected Earth are so wonderful we can only hope they are as close to reality when the time comes. A city decked in jewels, with gold so abundant the roads are paved with it; a place where there are no places an enemy can attack; a city with no tears, pain, sickness, or sorrow. There is no temple or sun because they are unnecessary—God lives with His People and is their Light! The Tree of Life is back—the curse is lifted! The story starts anew, but this story will never have a serpent. God will set everything right and live with His People forever! Amen!

Come, Lord Jesus! Come!

December 30 - Revelation 12-18: The Dragon and the Beasts Mimic God with Disastrous Results

Today’s Reading: Revelation 12-18

The Message

English Standard Version

ONE DAY MORE!

Thought to Guide Your Reading

God's Enemy mimics God, gains a huge following, and is defeated handily.

Summary in 100 Words or Less

A Dragon attempted to kill a Woman giving birth to a Child. The Dragon was thrown to Earth and chased the Woman.
Two Beasts appeared and gave their followers a mark: 666.
The Lamb appeared for His Hour of Judgment between God's and the Beasts' followers.
Seven disasters would finish God's Wrath. God's Faithful Followers sang praises.
The Beasts' followers refused to honor God.
God's enemies were defeated in an instant at Armageddon.
I, John, learned the meaning of the visions. People will wage war against God's Chosen People but be defeated.
Babylon and all her followers will be defeated!

How Today’s Reading Contributes to the Gospel: God is Setting All Things Right

The Dragon and the Beasts mimic God.

The Dragon knocked stars out of the heavens. The Beasts had heads which were brought back from the dead. They all mimic the Lamb of God and the Angels of God. They perform magic tricks which lure their followers in. They try to look like God though they speak against Him in every way possible.
This vision shows an important way God's Enemy tries to defeat the world. If God's Enemy can appear to be like Him, He can take unsuspecting and ignorant followers into whoring and other terrible acts. It presents a difficult problem for us—how can we tell the difference in God's Messengers and the Beasts'? Those who are willing to publicly confess that Jesus is resurrected are God's Messengers. To John's readers, the designation is clear—Nero(n) Caesar is God's Enemy, the Antichrist. To us it is less clear but easily testable.

The Dragon and the Beasts amassed a large harem.

Since these people do not want to honor God, God's Enemy becomes very popular. So popular, in fact, that he can control the economy and blacklist people unwilling to get his mark. Many people will flock to join God's Enemy.

God defeats our Accuser.

What makes God's Enemy's defeat wonderful for God's Chosen People is that he is also our enemy. He stands before God telling how we do not set things right. God doesn't defeat him to squash a mosquito. God defeats His Enemy, the Accuser, to set our relationship right!

The Beasts' followers never wish to honor God.

Before we feel sympathy for the people who suffer the seven plagues, remember that each plague is meant to lead them to change and return to God. God does not want to punish them but they give Him no choice. He must have things set right and anyone against that will be punished.

How would it feel knowing you have no prosecuting attorney against you?

December 29 - Revelation 6-11: Seven Seals and Seven Trumpets Show God's Power

Today’s Reading: Revelation 6-11

The Message

English Standard Version

Two days to go!

Thought to Guide Your Reading

God shows His Dominion over the earth.

Summary in 100 Words or Less

The Lamb removed the first seal: a conqueror.
The second seal: peace ceased.
The third seal: famine.
The fourth seal: death to a quarter of the earth.
The fifth seal: martyrs cried for vengeance.
The sixth seal: pandemonium. God's People were marked for protection. Crowds washed in Jesus' Blood praised God.
The seventh seal: silence.
Seven trumpets unleashed devastation. The fifth killed one-third of the earth. The survivors continued without a thought. God would allow His People to be killed but would raise them from the dead. The sixth trumpet.
The seventh trumpet brought God's peaceful Reign to the earth.

How Today’s Reading Contributes to the Gospel: God is Setting All Things Right

God shows His Dominion.

In one last-ditch effort to show the world His Power and Might, He opens seven seals and has seven trumpets blown to usher in the awesome signs of His Ability. These are acts done so the world can compare His Rule to the angel of the Abyss, as seen in tomorrow's reading.

The world continues on blithely dismissive of the acts they see.

Tucked away in the passage is a short snippet where John writes how people in the world never changed their way of life or their objects of worship. They were too stubborn change anything.

The seventh seal and trumpet brought God's Rule.

The first six seals and trumpets brought death and destruction to the world. The seventh brought peace. The seventh brought God's rule. God's Rule means peace and tranquility!

What would it take for you to take notice and change your life?

December 28 - Revelation 1-5: God will Set All Things Right in the End so Endure Until Then

Today’s Reading: Revelation 1-5

The Message

English Standard Version

We've read 65 books! Only one to go which will last four days!

Thought to Guide Your Reading

Don't focus on the numbers or the visions. Focus on the message.

Summary in 100 Words or Less

God's message through John to Asian churches:
Glory to Christ, eternal Priest! No one will escape His Return.
While on Patmos, Jesus compelled me to write what I saw and heard in a vision.
To persistent Ephesus: return to Me. Listen!
To libeled Smyrna: never give up. Listen!
To bold Pergamum: remove saboteurs. Listen!
To impressive Thyatira: change and receive a reward. Listen!
To dead Sardis: stop napping. Listen!
To steadfast Philadelphia: keep going. Listen!
To lukewarm Laodicea: buy from Me. Listen!
I saw the Throne-room of Heaven where every living thing praised God. The resurrected Lamb opened God's Scroll.

How Today’s Reading Contributes to the Gospel: God is Setting All Things Right

The purpose of the Revelation is to tell Christians that God will set all things right in the end.

Welcome to the playground of most conspiracy theories and off-the-wall theologies known to Christianity. We cannot blame them, since the Revelation (not RevelationS—pet peeve alert) does have quite a lot of imagery which seems ripe for picking and using in whatever idea you have cooking. Yet they—and Christians in general—focus on the wrong part of the book. The Revelation is not a book of encoded messages for readers thousands of years in the future. The Revelation is a letter to Christians to let them know their current persecution will last only so long before God sets it right. John uses imagery, visions, and other circuitous routes to bypass his Roman guards. To spend time on the numbers, the images, and John's commentary divorced from the overall message misses John's purpose. They had meaning to the original audience (24 = 12 Apostles + 12 tribes of Israel, many illusions coming from the the Prophets, etc.), which we will discuss a sampling, but the meanings are meant to help them realize that Caesar is not God. He will not win in the end and God will bring him to his knees:

Riding the clouds, [Jesus] will be seen by every eye,
   those who mocked and killed him will see him,
People from all nations and all times
   will tear their clothes in lament.
   Oh, Yes. (1:7, The Message)

Governments and other individuals/groups that grow in power and (self) importance eventually rival God. The message of the Revelation stays the same for us, though we should not look for a play-by-play description of what will happen in the near future. Some of the broad patterns repeat but the specific images are not the same.

The seven churches suffered different issues and were successful at varying degrees.

We should take heart that these groups had some things right, some things wrong, and Jesus wanted them to get better. No matter how bad we think of ourselves, God can still use us if we are willing to submit to Him.

Jesus has a level of Holiness all His own.

John wept when he realized no one was pure enough to open the Seals. Yet John was wrong—there was One worthy to open the Seals—Jesus! The amazing animals which had amazing power sang praise to the weak, resurrected Lamb. Only Jesus is worthy of our honor, praise, and glory!

Remember the vision of Jesus at the Throne of Heaven.

In the next few days we will read how the enemy mimics God in order to supplant Him.

How do you need to see that God is going to set all things right in the end?